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Hertford County, North Carolina's Free People of Color and Their Descendants
Before the outbreak of the Civil War, Hertford County had one of the largest populations of free people of color in North Carolina. Although they lived in a rural community, Hertford County’s free people of color and their descendants found success in business, education, community development, religious life, and politics. Warren Eugene Milteer, Jr.’s tireless efforts in numerous archives have produced the first full-length study of their lives and contributions from the colonial period into the twentieth century.
168 pages, Paperback
Published June 30, 2016
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
September 30, 2021
I am biased, as I am connected to several of the families in this book and my mother's name is listed in the acknowledgments. Regardless, this book was an insightful and easy read.
Milteer ties strings together documents and clues and walks us through the history of a unique place. Many of the free people of Hertford were free before the onset of Civil War, owning land, serving in the Revolutionary War, and carving out a community. Their decendants faced far more challenges later, with the onset of Jim Crow.
This telling of a different sort of African American narrative, one tied to my own, is priceless to me.
Milteer ties strings together documents and clues and walks us through the history of a unique place. Many of the free people of Hertford were free before the onset of Civil War, owning land, serving in the Revolutionary War, and carving out a community. Their decendants faced far more challenges later, with the onset of Jim Crow.
This telling of a different sort of African American narrative, one tied to my own, is priceless to me.
April 25, 2022
Professor Milteer privately published this book in the midst of his doctoral studies at UNC Chapel Hill. The book studies free people of color in the northeastern North Carolina County of Hertford from the colonial era through the waning of Jim Crow laws. His book provides a fascinating overview of the subject based on a deep and creative study of the primary materials, without being encumbered by the academic world's requirements of express interaction with secondary sources (i.e., academic books and articles on related topics). However, the reader familiar with those secondary sources can readily presume that the book remains informed by those other secondary sources, including Dr. Milteer's own very relevant scholarship.
A brief note might be helpful about the term "free people of color." Most modern American historians have used the term "free African Americans" to denote all non-white persons who were free in colonial British North American and the United States before the Civil War. While Dr. Milteer's book here does not define this term, his other two books argue that many persons termed "free persons of color" were actually, in whole or in party, the decedents at Native Americans as much as of Africans, African Americans, and people of European background (i.e, white people). Thinking about this distinction will require me and all scholars of American history to wrestle with this matter, and to try to seek out evidence on local communities of free people of color in the pre-Civil War South in particular.
Intersecting, Dr. Milteer traces this group up at least the 1960s. What I found most interesting was the degree to which the decedents of free persons of color tended to remain socially distinct from the descendants of persons who had been enslaved prior to the Civil War. It is suggested that, only as local school leaders worked to intermingle children from these families of free persons of color with the children descended from families of persons who had been enslaved have these distinctions including intermarriage tended to begin breaking down. Keep in mind, Dr. Milteer asserts and proves that such old social lines remained in place 100 years or more after the end of slavery in the United States.
Dr. Milteer has provided a wonderful example of local history, truly built on scholarship and primary source research. His book is first rate.
A brief note might be helpful about the term "free people of color." Most modern American historians have used the term "free African Americans" to denote all non-white persons who were free in colonial British North American and the United States before the Civil War. While Dr. Milteer's book here does not define this term, his other two books argue that many persons termed "free persons of color" were actually, in whole or in party, the decedents at Native Americans as much as of Africans, African Americans, and people of European background (i.e, white people). Thinking about this distinction will require me and all scholars of American history to wrestle with this matter, and to try to seek out evidence on local communities of free people of color in the pre-Civil War South in particular.
Intersecting, Dr. Milteer traces this group up at least the 1960s. What I found most interesting was the degree to which the decedents of free persons of color tended to remain socially distinct from the descendants of persons who had been enslaved prior to the Civil War. It is suggested that, only as local school leaders worked to intermingle children from these families of free persons of color with the children descended from families of persons who had been enslaved have these distinctions including intermarriage tended to begin breaking down. Keep in mind, Dr. Milteer asserts and proves that such old social lines remained in place 100 years or more after the end of slavery in the United States.
Dr. Milteer has provided a wonderful example of local history, truly built on scholarship and primary source research. His book is first rate.
July 12, 2022
It was really cool to see my great great great grandparents in this book. I really appreciate the work that the author did to research and write this. I learned so much about my family's history and what life was like that I didn't know before. It had a lot of information spanning that historical period and was very detailed!
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews